The New Continent - Project Info Pack

The New Continent

Julian SayarerP h i l L e G a l

“It takes so little, so infinitely little, for someone to find himself on the other side of the border, where everything - love, convictions, faith, history - no longer has meaning. The whole mystery of human life resides on the fact that it is spent in the im-mediate proximity of, and even in direct contact with, that border, that it is separated from it not by kilometres but by barely a millimetre.”

Milan Kundera - the book of laughter and forgetting.

The New Continent

The New Continent

Synopsis | Meet the Team | Timeline & Delivery | Maps & Itineraries | Products | Sponsors & Partners | Contacts & New Medias

The Schengen Agreement was signed on June 14th 1985, brought about to govern the free movement of people within Europe’s borders. On the day of Schengen’s thirtieth birthday, the documentary project New Continent begins a two-month circumnavigation of Europe and the Schen-gen Zone. The project sets out to tell the stories at Schengen’s frontiers; of people who move inside its borders and of people still outside of them.

Quite apart from the date itself, the timing holds significance. A century since World War I defined the nations through which the project will travel, the European Union has in ways become victim of its own success, shepherding - in a period of tranquilty long and stable enough for peace to be taken for granted and for integration to become perceived as a problem rather than a goal. These sentiments have made their way steadily to the ballot box, as young Greeks voted for Golden Dawn and British pensioners the UK Independence Party.What changed so profoundly as to normalise ideas and language that would very recently have been considered extreme?

What is to be done with those people who are isolated by hasty definitions of national values and identity and does isolation create a cycle of extremism where each vicious thought, word or action precipitates the next?

Certainly the mixing of Europe’s cultures has been no more pronounced than the ideas that have sprung up to describe and prophesise its consequences. Some claim immigration is threatening European culture while others feel it is strengthening and enhancing that culture. Still others feel its presence and effects are overstated to begin with. Statistics can be relied upon to support any contention and the sides people take are often as distinct from one another as the bor-ders either side of Schengen. Supporters of immigration claim incoming migrant workers were good for the economy while denying their arrival have any effects on wages. Opponents of migrations claim supporters of migration were only supporters at all because they had not witnessed the effects of the trend they supported. Despite this hot contention, evidence suggests those in areas of high-immigration tend (perhaps unsurprisingly) to be most often in favour of immigration.

A final irony is that the name of a small town in Luxembourg, and the treaty that takes its name from it, is unknown to most who argue about its effects. New Continent is a response in words and pictures to boundaries that represent Schengen, some of the differences it hosts and the questions that arise. The project is an attempt to recog-nise the genuine difficulties of complex human geographies, while also acknowledging that borders can obstruct much that is good in the spirit of a modern Europe.

Synopsis | Meet the Team | Timeline & Delivery | Maps & Itineraries | Products | Sponsors & partners | Contacts & New Medias

Meet the Team

The core members of the project are Phil Le Gal; a French documentary photographer, and Julian Sayarer; a writer and journalist. Phil Le Gal will provide the graphic elements of the documentary and Julian Sayarer the written stories as the project progresses.

Phil Le Gal’s photography has been exhibited in the UK and published in national magazines. His body of work has already ex-plored the notion of territory, nationality and the ambiguity of borders in countries not officially recognized by the international community; this has included visits to the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (Transnistria) in Europe or the Nagorno-Karab-akh republic in Armenia/Azerbaijan. He has completed an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography and has worked internationally on long-term projects in China, North Korea (DPRK), former Soviet countries, Nigeria, UK & France.

Julian Sayarer is half-British and half-Turkish, travelling extensively as a writer between 2008 and the present. His style of on the ground social commentary is informed by slow travels largely by bicycle or hitchhiking; he has cycled from London to Shang-hai, cycled and hitchhiked across North America and undertaken numerous other journeys around Europe by thumb or pedal. He is originally an International Relations graduate of the University of Sussex, is author of Life Cycles – a book about his 18,000-mile circumnavigation by bicycle, and has had his writing featured in numerous UK and international publications.



Phil Le Gal is a French documentary pho-tographer, based in London, UK. He spe-cialises in photo documentary, reportage and portraiture. Much of his practice stems from his interests in contemporary social, environmental and globalization issues. Each story is a window on a facet of this fascinating yet contradictory planet.

He is passionate about stories, trav-els, revealing how others live and odd-ities of this world. After training in photography at London Central Saint Martin’s College of Arts he has com-pleted a Master in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography with Merits at the London College of Communica-tion, University of the Arts London.

He works on long-term, self-initiated and researched projects and has com-pleted work in China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), former Soviet countries, Nigeria, UK, France. His work has been displayed in several exhi-bitions in the UK and published on the BBC, British Journal of Photography, Metro.

W: http://phillegal.org E: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0) 7 956 627 956


Julian Sayarer is half-British and half-Turkish, travelling exten-sively as a writer between 2008 and the present. His style of on the ground social commentary is informed by slow travels largely by bicycle or hitchhiking; he has cycled from London to Shanghai, cycled and hitchhiked across North America and undertaken numerous other journeys around Europe by thumb or pedal. He is originally an International Rela-tions graduate of the University of Sussex, is author of Life Cy-cles – a book about his 18,000-mile circumnavigation by bi-cycle, and has had his writing featured in numerous UK and international publications.

W: juliansayarer.comW: thisisnotforcharity.comE: [email protected]: @julian_sayarer

Timeline &Delivery


Maps &Itineraries


The provisional itinerary will begin from the city of Calais and stories of migrants trying to reach the UK, through France and the landscape of World Wars up to the village of Schengen in Luxembourg. The old route of the Iron Curtain will lead to Berlin and then on to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave within the Schengen space, up to the Baltic States and the city of Vilnius. Kiev and Maidan square in Ukraine will be visited before heading to Romania and Bulgaria; new EU member states along the Black Sea.

The Turkish-Greece border offers another frontier as well as a well-known route for trafficking people. The return West will pass through the Balkans, via Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia and the newest EU member, Croatia. One of the southernmost parts of the Schengen space will be visited on the Italian island of Lampedusa – the destination of many North African migrants aiming to reach Schengen. The final leg of the journey will be up through Italy to Perpignan, France, where the documentary project will be presented at the Visa pour l’Image Photojournalism Festival.

An estimate of the total distance travelled is approximately 8,000 miles (10,000kms). To ensure exposure to local places and popu-lations, all travel will be done overland. This will include journeys by car, train, local public transport and in some cases, by bicycle.

• France : Calais – ‘The jungle’ • Luxembourg : Schengen’s namesake• Germany : The Iron Curtain and Berlin’s Wall• Russia : Kaliningrad : A Russian enclave in Europe’s Schengen space• Estonia : E-estonia – Towards European e-citizenship?• Bielorussia : An outsider’s perspective• Ukraine : Maidan : In favour of EU ties?• Transnistria : Europe’s forgotten country • Romania & Bulgaria : The Black Sea frontier• Croatia : Waiting to arrive• Lampedusa : On the edge of Schengen

Possible additional destinations :• Melilla and Ceuta : Spanish enclaves in Africa• Norway : The Arctic north of Schengen• Cyprus : Bound to join the single space


Products

The final output of New Continent will be a website, video and book. The website will host a web documentary and provide a social media point of reference for submitting stories from the project. Blog updates, Instagram photographs and other documentation will be posted during the itinerary, maintaining contact with partners, funders and a community as the project develops.

A book of monographs will be printed at the end of the project and sold from the website. A video will also be published and made available on a pay per view basis during 2016.

An exhibition in London will provide a focal point for New Continent and the release of the final works; this will also be an opportunity for partners to meet, celebrate their involvement with the project and share ideas resulting from its completion.


Partners& Sponsors

A proportion of funding is already in place and ensures the project will go ahead as planned. We are also seeking funds and private investors to support it.

Meanwhile,discussions with galleries, publishers, educational institutions and magazines are underway to develop the network of partners that will help deliver and then promote New Continent to the widest possible audience.

For details of the budget, to enquire about support and sponsorship opportunities, or to fund a specific cost within the project, please contact:

[email protected]

+44 (0) 7 956 627 956


Contacts & New Medias

http://theNewContinent.eu

[email protected]

#theNewContinent

https://www.facebook.com/TheNewContinent

+44 (0) 7 956 627 956

http://theNewContinent.eu | [email protected] | #theNewContinent | https://www.facebook.com/TheNewContinent

The New Continent

http://theNewContinent.eu | [email protected] | #theNewContinent | https://www.facebook.com/TheNewContinent

Documents

The New Continent - Project Info Pack